(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) and, more particularly, to a system and method for a launch control console to communicate with a UUV.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
A Midsized Autonomous Reconfigurable Vehicle (MARV) is an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) that is used for select undersea missions.
Typically, UUVs are used for commercial and military purposes. For example, UUVs may be used by the oil and gas industry to make maps of a seafloor before building subsea infrastructure, pipelines, etc. Military applications may include: determining the existence of mines; monitoring protected areas for unidentified objects; and aiding in detection of manned submarines, etc. UUVs range in size from portable lightweight vehicles to large diameter vehicles over ten feet in length. Many UUVs carry sensors to navigate autonomously and carry out various tasks such as: mapping features on the ocean floor; measuring physical characteristics of sea water (such as temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen); detecting chlorophyll from microscopic marine algae; measuring concentrations of small particles in the water; and collecting images of the seafloor and the sea.
UUVs rely on a number of propulsion methods, such as propeller based fins, thrusters, or nozzles. UUVs are typically programmed to perform their mission at the surface. When launched, UUVs navigate through the water and collect data.
UUVs may be equipped with navigation systems, such as inertial navigation systems. An inertial navigation system (INS) may use a computer, motion sensors (accelerometers) and rotation sensors (gyroscopes) to continuously calculate position, orientation, and velocity of the UUV. The INS may be initially provided with a position and velocity from another source (a human operator, a GPS satellite receiver, etc.), and thereafter may compute its own updated position and velocity by integrating information received from the motion sensors. A pressure sensor may measure vertical position (e.g., depth) of the UUV.
The actual and potential range of applications of UUVs for ocean science and related applications is potentially unlimited. As the variety of deployable instruments/sensors increase and their operating costs decrease, UUVs are likely to become common tools for ocean exploration. Currently, many UUVs require manual configuration and setup of their instruments and subsystems. For example, an operator can manually verify that all instruments are installed and if any changes have been made to the vehicle configuration, such as adding or removing an instrument. When the number of UUVs in an organization is large, it may be prohibitively costly to manually configure every UUV before a mission.
The MARV type of UUV encompasses a robust propulsor section that can interact with pneumatic surface ship tube launchers or hydraulic submarine torpedo tube launchers. The MARV contains two thruster sections that allow the vehicle to be recovered inside a submarine torpedo tube when used in conjunction with a compatible remotely-operated vehicle (ROV). The MARV may have other configurations based on particular needs and suitability (for example: chemical sensors, video cameras, side-scan sonar, bathymetry sonar, and a vector sensor).
The MARV may also contain software components, including Casualty Monitoring (CASMON) software, Power Distribution Assembly (PDA) controller software, and Vehicle Controller (VC) software. These software components may be separable by general function but work together to provide an integrated configuration system.
A single organization can support multiple unmanned underwater vehicles such as the MARV with each vehicle having differing components and procedures (for example: start-up procedures, launching checklists, missions, etc). The various configurations may not be plainly visible or identifiable from the exterior of the vehicle. Different procedures and checklists may need to be configured separately for each vehicle. These configurations may have to be checked (and sometimes double checked) to ensure that the user-specified configuration is permitted by existing system parameters and configurations. For at least these reasons, a system and method to automatically configure various vehicle settings for launch control is needed.